Tenant turns out to be from hell

[Tony Sepassi]

Hi Guys,

I have this tenant for the past 2 years, he always paid on time and he even put in laminated wood in my condo which he paid for. He has taken good care of the property, but about two months ago I get a call from the building manager that the carpet outside my condo in the hallway is wet and it seems the water is coming from my condo. We found out the dishwasher has been leaking and I found out that this has happened before and the tenant never notified my management. He clean it with a towel and thought it wasn't a big deal and now it happened again and it ruined the laminated floorings and damages the drywall too.

I had to get a restoration team to come in dry the place and one of the drywall has to be cut and replaced. Had a air scrubber in the condo then ran a mold test and it came back positive but they said it could be from the HVAC which the filter was 60% dirty and was not replaced and I also found out the tenant did not have renters insurance. In the contract it was clearly mentioned anything that needs to be fixed he needs to report to my management and he never reported the leak nor did ever replaced the filter or have renters insurance. My insurance paid for everything but I feel he needs to pay since he did not report the leak in the first place.

He wants to extend the lease when it is up but he feels he is not responsible for the damages to the condo. I'm planning to have air scrubbers in the unit again and then run another mold test to make sure everything is in the clear but he has not been returning my management call to setup a time to have air scrubbers in the condo.

I did talk to my real estate attorney he said since he has $4100 security deposit let him know this matter was not been resolved and when the lease is up to keep the security deposit.

At this point I'm also thinking if he is not going to cooperate should we start the eviction process or wait and see?

Thanks!

[Kevin Brown]

So I don't see why this tenant is "from hell"? They put down a $4k deposit, paid on time for 2 years, put in flooring at no cost to you, and as far as I can tell the only thing they did wrong was not report a maintenance issue, or clean the hvac filters and your insurance ended up paying for the repairs anyways. If that's the worst thing that's happened to any of my rentals in 2 years, id be pretty happy... Its obviously your choice to renew the lease or not, but Im not sure this tenant wouldn't end up in the top half of possible tenants...